Character Consistency And Plot Continuity Even In The Multiverse

Happy July.

For blog purposes, we regard Poul Anderson's Operation Otherworld (=Operation Chaos + Operation Luna) as the middle volume of a multiversal trilogy beginning with Three Hearts And Three Lions and concluding with A Midsummer Tempest:

in THATL, Holger Carlsen fights for Law against Chaos in two universes;

in Operation Chaos, the Matucheks fight for Law against Chaos in a third universe;

in A Midsummer Tempest, Holger meets Valeria Matuchek in the Old Phoenix Inn between universes.

At the end of THATL, Holger has:

returned from the Carolingian universe to (what looks like) our universe where World War II was against Nazi Germany - whereas, in the Matuchek's universe, it was against the Saracen Caliphate;

converted to Catholicism because of his experiences in the Carolingian universe which included remembering that he is native to that universe and a legendary hero of Christendom;

searched bookshops in London, Paris, Rome and the US for grimoires because he wants to return to the Carolingian universe by magic;

disappeared.

When he meets Valeria, he has:

used grimoires to travel between universes but without direction;
has had many mishaps, e.g., barely escaping from Aztec gods;
entered the Old Phoenix by accident.

Valeria uses Sokolnikoff's Introduction to Paratemporal Mathematics and the Handbook of Alchemy and Metaphysics to teach Holger theorems that will enable him to travel to the continuum that he wants but he will have to understand the transcendental calculus to prove the theorems.

And, unfortunately, that is the last that we see of either Holger or Valeria. Anderson's many vast series show us that there is always more than we know.